Top 5 Songs: The Week of 7/12/13

There was bound to be some Midnight Cinema in my top 5 this week, since Midnight Cinema is the return of one of my favorite bands, Thriving Ivory (sans one member). But this song in particular is a great example of why I was excited in the first place. The soft piano and strings mixed in behind guitars and drums and the poignant use of falsetto in the chorus makes it both an emotional and catchy song.

Despite being one of the band’s better-known songs, I’ve somehow not heard it until recently. I really enjoy the cheeky tone behind the song, although it’s not that that’s particularly surprising with Fall Out Boy. Kicking off with brass and powerful strings, it immediately piques your interest before crashing into an invigorating chorus of “Thanks for the memories, even though they weren’t so great.” Overall, it features a lot of interesting instrumentation and some interesting vocals, but still works really well as a classic pop-punk song.

This song features brass again, and overall has a much more jazzy feel and beat to it than most of Fall Out Boy’s work, which is what really draws me into the song, and it blends so well with their typical guitar work. It also contains some of Fall Out Boy’s signature wit in lyricism. I particularly enjoy the chorus, which is: “The truth hurts worse / Than anything I could bring myself to do to you.”

By far the most emotional track on their debut EP, “Holding My Breath” is a rather moving depiction of post-breakup feelings. The piano that starts off the song on a very soft note really sets the atmosphere for the rest of the song. It begins to kick in with percussion as the song asks a poignant question: “Is it harder to leave / or to be left behind?” Even once the full instrumentation kicks in, strings, guitar, and all, it still has a slow, soft feeling to it, although the bridge and final chorus really explode with emotion.

I really don’t have much diversity in my top five this week – oops. Anyway, “The (After) Life Of The Party” begins with an optimistic-sounding and unique mix of electronic sounds and strings. However, the lyrics quickly show that it’s not really a happy song, with the opening lines, “I’m a stitch away from making it / and a scar away from falling apart.” It soon bursts into a soaring hook where the song particularly shines. I’ve read criticisms of the song that the song tries to be too big, but I disagree; I think Fall Out Boy really pulls the song off well, and it’s one of my favorites of the album, if not my favorite.